Other Words for Loving | Tiffany Belieu

You met Baby in the fall

of the worst year. Baby doesn’t care

if she sleeps no top, just jeans. Broke

your bones and kept you pressed, growing

into something grotesque but Baby

thinks you’re beautiful. An edict

passed like poison, whispers wave

through hallways. Only skin

or less. Strange, to believe

in magic you willfully ignore

the trick. Lie awake confronting

the body, what it is afraid to know.

A plan to separate you,

different interrogation rooms. Watch

Baby’s lips move and you say,

the memory of a feeling

is a comfortable enough sadness.

Tiffany is writing in the Midwest. Her work is published in Back Patio Press, Q/A Poetry, Muskeg Magazine, Rabid Oak and The Mantle among others. She can be found @tiffobot on Twitter